Historically, the ability to store hydrogen at high volumetric and gravimetric density and release it on demand has been a crucial limiting factor in realizing the full potential of a number of technologies such as portable chemical laser systems. Most recently, the need for a high density hydrogen storage source for fuel cell systems has emerged as new requirements for portable electric power sources exceed current and future battery capabilities. Undeniably, further advances in state of the art hydrogen storage technology are still necessary and vital to the widespread implementation of fuel cells as high power density portable systems. The difficult challenge to improving chemical hydrogen storage methods is to find compounds or mixtures with high storage capacity that also exhibit clean, efficient and fast hydrogen release mechanisms. In addition, to attain maximum overall system storage capacity, the fuel must require minimal thermal management (be close to thermoneutral) to reduce the volume and weight of ancillary hardware. This becomes particularly difficult to achieve in small scale applications. For these systems it may be advantageous to employ exothermic self-sustaining reactions to generate hydrogen provided sufficient thermal control can be maintained.
There exists a need in the art for a composition/method of storing hydrogen for transportation utilizing long lasting hydrogen powered fuel cell systems. Furthermore, there exits a need for a method of storing hydrogen material for fuel cell systems having four times the energy density of the batteries currently utilized, and that the fuel cells can be replaced simply and quickly.
It is to be understood that the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not to be viewed as being restrictive of the invention, as claimed. Further advantages of this invention will be apparent after a review of the following detailed description of the disclosed embodiments, which are illustrated schematically in the accompanying drawings and in the appended claims.